


Options Offered

by Merfilly



Series: Colony [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-22
Updated: 2017-05-22
Packaged: 2018-11-03 19:25:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10973787
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merfilly/pseuds/Merfilly
Summary: The colony's two halves continue to grow and adapt, until a choice is made.





	Options Offered

Time, for droids, moved faster than clones, as the weeks proved. The first time a droid wandered into Resolution, the city name the men had decided on, wearing paint in precise lines depicting binary art, Artoo had cheered them. The men could do no less; taking on personal colors was something they understood too well. After that, more of them showed up wearing colors.

It was an amusement to all of them that the big B2s preferred the brightest, most garish color combinations.

Names were becoming common, with droids insisting on being called abbreviated portions of their designations, just like Artoo. Rex was almost concerned about the extreme reverence they held his general's droid in… until he remembered how frequently his own men would try to get a hand on the astromech's dome before a fight, for luck. R2-D2 was special to them all, and if he could be the bridge between Resolution and Hexa, the name for the droid settlement, then so be it.

Little by little, the men were mingling with the droids, showing them how to build, how to craft, how to play. The droids grasped 'play' faster than expected, as the B1 sense of humor asserted itself. Kix found himself pitying whomever had designed them initially, to have watched as these funny little beings were made to fight and die for beings that didn't even care about them.

It struck a little too close to home, and the next night, Kix and Jesse both invited Seventy-Five to join them for stories and cultural exchange. 

That was how Kix found out that every cruel murder of a droid had been uploaded to their internal droid-net. Seventy-Five knew the designation of every droid Grievous, Asajj, and Dooku had murdered out of irritation. They knew the names of those that had fallen for lack of power on Saleucami. They knew them all… and had never been able to rebel or protest effectively.

Kix took the information and went to Kitster the very next day, a thought in his mind.

* * *

Cree was, without a doubt, the favorite vod where all the droids were concerned. His voluntary assistance to them had won a special place for him in their processors. So Kix and Kitster presented their idea to him, for him to carry back to the droids in Hexa. Artoo rolled with him, and it wasn't long before there was a full assembly of the droids in the central square of the small settlement.

"I'm not a natural speaker," Cree said. "If I say something that sounds wrong, ask Artoo to clarify." He looked at Tee Dee, at Seventy-Five, then smiled a little softly at Bump hanging onto Tee Dee's hand. "Kitster analyzed the programming scan he took while all of you were inactivated. He's got a virus — no, hold on! Let me finish! — a virus for your brothers far from here. Something to remove the loyalty programming, the obedience lines. That's all it would do! 

"We don't want to do it just to end the war, though that's a big part of it," Cree told them. "No more of your brothers or ours getting killed would be great. But, the big part of it is that our General found our slave chip and turned it off. We're free… but we don't know if they freed our brothers in Republic space yet. We've got a chance to pay that forward, though, by giving your brothers a chance to be free, the next time we make a raid. It would let us help your kind without having to hurt any of them directly."

"Directly?" Tee Dee said, deep voice begging clarification. 

Cree let out a deep breath. "Rebellions are always opposed, from everything we have read in trying to learn more than just what Kamino taught us."

"Show us this virus, and let us discuss it, Friend Cree," Seventy-Five said decisively, leading to Cree setting a projector down that put the tightly written code packet on display for them all. He then went and sat down against the nearest wall, watching as Artoo and the others fell into the rapid-fire binary discussion. His guts were twisted up, hoping they took it, yet feeling pain of a kind for the likely casualties in the rebellion to follow.

He had never thought he'd ever care about the Seppie droids, and now he was as worried over them as he was his own distant brothers still in Republic space.

* * *

Cree had nodded off during the discussion; sleep when and where you can was too ingrained in his bones not to. He woke to Tee Dee trying to scoop him up, and experienced a very odd disconnect from reality at the idea of a droid trying to be caring at him.

"I'm awake."

"You wish to walk?" Tee Dee inferred from that and straightened.

"Yeah. No sense wasting effort on me, buddy," Cree told him, standing up to see most of the droids dispersing, and Bump going with one of the other B2s.

"We wish to tell our thoughts to your Captain and his jetiise," Tee Dee told Cree, as Artoo rolled up and threw a light forward for Cree to see as they used the path back to Resolution. 

"Got it." 

Cree guided them back to the admin building, where both Ahsoka and Anakin lived, and Rex rarely left. No one commented on that oddity; it was common but unspoken knowledge that Anakin had left a mate, and Rex had left his dearest brother, while Ahsoka was recovering from being betrayed by the very people that had raised her. If the three of them found comfort with each other, not a single brother was going to protest.

"Sirs," he said as he guided Tee Dee into the common room where the two jetiise were working on small components to some mechanical thing, and Rex was cleaning his blasters. Rex stood up for Tee Dee, according the other officer respect. Tee Dee inclined his upper body, then lowered himself to sit on the floor in deference to their small sizes. Artoo zipped over to Anakin's side, as all the humans focused on the B2 as Rex sat back down.

"We wish to adapt the virus," Tee Dee announced. "Add our experiences, lessons from the Vod'e An. However, we will do so with the location of this world erased. We will carry it to our brothers, so that we may possibly liberate a TK series. They hold the encryption keys. To acquire and infect one of them would speed the process of rebellion through us, and potentially end the war within the space of one month by your galactic calendar."

"That would be suicidal for the ones who go!" Ahsoka said, distress written in her lekku and voice, a fact that made Tee Dee's optic glow warmly.

"It is the choice we make, young commander, in order to save the lives of our brothers, and yours."

Anakin shook his head. "I don't like losing any of you. We're teaching each other so much, but… it is your choice. We'll have to capture a new Separatist ship for you, since we mostly cannibalized the others. What about your younglings?"

"Only a small squad will go, each with the virus uploaded," Tee Dee said. "Seventy-Five is choosing his successor, and I have named mine. We have only one request, beyond protecting our brothers and creations who will remain in Hexa."

"Tell us, Tee Dee," Rex said gently, fighting a lump in his throat at what he was hearing.

"Remember our names."


End file.
